Customer Service - Why it Matters
A typical business hears from only 4% of it’s dissatisfied customers. The other 96% just quietly go away and 91% will never come back. That represents a serious financial loss for companies whose people don’t know how to treat customers, and a tremendous gain to those that do.
A survey on “Why customers quit” found the following:
- 3% move away
- 5% develop other friendships
- 9% leave for competitive reasons
- 14% are dissatisfied with the product
- 68% quit because of an attitude of indifference toward the customer by the owner, manager or some employee.
A typical dissatisfied customer will tell eight to ten people about a problem; One in five will tell twenty. It takes twelve positive sevice incidents to make up for one negative incident.
70% of complaining customers will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint in their favor. If you solve the problem on the spot, 95% will do business with you again. On average, a satisfied complainer will tell five people about the problem and how it was satisfactorily resolved.
The average business spends six times more to attract new customers than it does to keep old ones, yet customer loyalty is in most cases worth ten times the price of a single purchase.
Businesses having low service quality average only 1% return on sales and lose market share at the rate of 2% per year. Businesses with high service quality average a 12% return on sales, gain market share at the rate of 6% per year and charge significantly higher prices.
Provided by GTM as part of its Webinar Training Series: “Difficult clients are still your clients; Tips on Handling Demanding Clients” - uncredited
